Glad you had a great last weekend (I am a bit slow with the replies these days) and hope this one is filled with a bit of outdoor activity. I plan to get out on the xc-ski today and hopefully tomorrow as well. Snow sin the forecast :-).

I hope you enjoy the xc skiing – here, if has snowed steadily for the last 24 hours, and conditions are looking good for skis and snowshoes! (Don’t worry about late replies, I only post once a week and can take days to respond!)

Hi Mike. Do you hide amongst the undergrowth for hours on end like a master of disguise or just happen upon these delightful views? 🙂 I’d be interested to learn more about the techniques behind some of your glorious photos sometimes you know.

Hi Graham, to be honest most of the time we just stumble upon what we photograph with the whole thing prefaced with the fact we go looking of things to stumble upon. We like to hike, ski and sometimes just go look for birds and wildlife and always take the cameras with us. We do take plenty of photographs and end up tossing most in the bin but every once in awhile we get a keeper and that is what we put up here on the blog. Living in an area where those opportunities present themselves is a big part of it. We also are interested in nature as a whole so if animals are not present we will look at plants and plants not present look at insects ect. I also like editing ad refining the images on the computer which also helps the process. Overall we just go out and have a bit of fun with it and hope for the best.

I have to say, that whole ethos is brilliant! 😊 It works so well and the results on your blog are great.

On a similar note, we went to Tiritiri Matangi island near Auckland this weekend and saw our first ever wild kiwi. It was so great to stand there with a red torch (they can’t see red light) and watch it walk about two feet away past us. No photos though on this occasion…just enjoyed the moment.

You got it. It’s a pest free island (one of many) just off the coast not far from Auckland where they are being very successful with native birds…so much so that they’ve been relocating them around the country over time to restart lost populations in other pest free zones. Kiwis are part of that…but there are kakariki, whitehead, rifleman, kokako (to name a few) as well. They’re even reintroducing the giant weta too (huge insect)…just in case you fancy googling them…😊

Well on the bright side running into o of those insects in the dark unexpectedly might not be the most tranquil occurrences. Hope you do get a next time as seeing a Weta or any insect that large has got to be something else. Have a wonderful week.